Off The Cuff: A wry look at life

The first time I came to this region was on a Haj ship, whose engines conked out twice during the journey from Mumbai to Jeddah, leaving us drifting aimlessly in the shark-infested waters.

The movie Jaws hadn't been released then and we were blissfully unaware that predators were circling underneath. If we had known, we would have tossed the captain to the sharks, or had hysterics quietly.

Since I was looking less greener than the other passengers, a badge was tagged on to my shirt declaring in Urdu that I was the "servant of the hajis".

As I was supposed to help the old and the infirm, I went down to the hold where most of the pilgrims were travelling and the scene was something like out of Ben Hur, where the Romans had shackled the galley slaves and got them to do the rowing in time to the beat of the drums.

The hold was ankle-deep in water and the stifling heat had knocked out cold many of the elderly pilgrims. Most of them were performing their ablutions right from their bunk beds and the whole place was sloshing like a wave pool, moving in synch with the roll of the sea.

After many years the ship was put out of commission as someone in the government or the Haj Committee finally realised the voyage was making the older pilgrims even more incapable of performing the pilgrimage and was creating snarl-ups at the clinics in Makkah.

Now Indian hajis fly to Saudi Arabia by air, but many still think they are on a train and carry with them plastic mugs for their trips to the toilet. But that's another story.

There were several young people in their late 20s on board that ship, including moi, who didn't exactly look like they were going on their "journey of a lifetime".

The Haj was one route people took to the Kingdom looking for jobs, before New Delhi cottoned on to the fact and made it mandatory that you be of a certain age to make the pilgrimage.

I was desperate to move abroad as I was getting lonesome as the years passed. First, my Anglo-Indian friends left for Australia. Then, my Hindu friends migrated to the States. Finally, my Muslim friends went to Saudi Arabia and only returned once a year, wearing snazzy watches and reeking of expensive cologne.

There are two types of migrants. One, are the refugees, the unfortunate flotsam and jetsam of society, who will undertake anything to escape from their homeland.

Many of them go to Canada on boats from China, with promises from snakeheads, the human smugglers, of a better life in North America.

Then there is also the second group of people seeking better opportunities. But this new wave of emigrants flocking to Canada from the Gulf States cannot be dubbed as economic migrants.

If anyone can afford to pay someone $3000 to fill in their forms and file them at the window in the embassy or consulate, then they don't exactly fall into that category.

Many of these people say they are giving up a great job, a tax-free salary and other perks like yearly air tickets for vacations back home, only for their children's future.

I am sure its giving the poor kids a guilt trip which they will suffer for the rest of their lives, for after getting into Canada, their parents realise to their horror that neither the consultants nor Jean Chretien hinted that their long years of experience in the Gulf count for zilch. Then starts the reverse migration.

Someone in one of the UN departments monitoring human movement across continents must be confused with all this to and fro-ing from the Gulf States to Canada… and back.